A sound intruded, a rustling of leaves as if someone moved through the tree branches above her. Caught up in grief, Mara barely noticed, even when a dark figure dropped to land next to her. Before she could open her eyes, powerful fingers yanked on her hair. Mara’s head snapped back. Jolted by a terrible current of fear, she struggled, half glimpsing a man in black robes behind her. Then a blow to the face stunned her. Her hair was released and a cord was passed over her head. Instinctively she grabbed at it. Her fingers tangled in the loop that should have killed her in seconds, but as the man tightened the garrotte, her palm prevented the knot in the centre from crushing her windpipe. Still she couldn’t breathe. Her attempt to shout for aid was stifled. She tried to roll away, but her assailant jerked upon the cord and held her firmly in check. A wrestler’s kick learned from her brother earned her a mocking half-laugh, half-grunt. Despite her skill, Mara was no match for the assassin.
The cord tightened, cutting painfully into her hand and neck. Mara gasped for breath, but none came and her lungs burned. Struggling like a fish on a gill line, she felt the man haul her upright. Only her awkward grip on the cord kept her neck from breaking. Mara’s ears sang from the pounding of her own blood within. She clawed helplessly with her free hand. Her fingers tangled in cloth. She yanked, but was too weak to overbalance the man. Through a roar like surf, she heard the man’s laboured breathing as he lifted her off the ground. Then, defeated by lack of air, her spirit fell downwards into darkness.
2 – Evaluations
Mara felt wetness upon her face.
Through the confusion of returning senses, she realized Papewaio was gently cradling her head in the crook of his arm as he moistened her face with a damp rag. Mara opened her mouth to speak, but her throat constricted. She coughed, then swallowed hard against the ache of injured neck-muscles. She blinked, and struggled to organize her thoughts; but she knew only that her neck and throat hurt terribly and the sky above looked splendid beyond belief, its blue-green depths appearing to fade into the infinite. Then she moved her right hand; pain shot across her palm, jolting her to full memory.
Almost inaudibly she said, ‘The assassin?’
Papewaio inclined his head toward something sprawled by the reflecting pool. ‘Dead.’
Mara turned to look, ignoring the discomfort of her injuries. The corpse of the killer lay on one side, the fingers of one hand trailing in water discoloured with blood. He was short, reed-thin, of almost delicate build, and clad simply in a black robe and calf-length trousers. His hood and veil had been pulled aside, revealing a smooth, boyish face marked by a blue tattoo upon his left cheek – a hamoi flower stylized to six concentric circles of wavy lines. Both hands were dyed red to the wrists. Mara shuddered, still stinging from the violence of those hands upon her flesh.
Papewaio helped her to her feet. He tossed away the rag, torn from her rent garment, and handed her the white robe intended for the end of the ceremony. Mara clothed herself, ignoring the stains her injured hands made upon the delicately embroidered material. At her nod, Papewaio escorted her from the glade.
Mara followed the path, its familiarity no longer a comfort. The cruel bite of the stranger’s cord had forced her to recognize that her enemies could reach even to the heart of the Acoma estates. The security of her childhood was forever gone. The dark hedges surrounding the glade now seemed a haven for assassins, and the shade beneath the wide limbs of the ulo tree carried a chill. Rubbing the bruised and bloody flesh of her right hand, Mara restrained an impulse to bolt in panic. Though terrified like a thyza bird at the shadow of a golden killwing as it circles above, she stepped through the ceremonial gate with some vestige of the decorum expected of the Ruling Lady of a great house.
Nacoya and Keyoke waited just outside, with the estate gardener and two of his assistants. None spoke but Keyoke, who said only, ‘What?’
Papewaio replied with grim brevity. ‘As you thought. An assassin waited. Hamoi tong.’
Nacoya extended her arms, gathering Mara into hands that had soothed her hurts since childhood, yet for the first time Mara found little reassurance. With a voice still croaking from her near strangulation, she said, ‘Hamoi tong, Keyoke?’
‘The Red Hands of the Flower Brotherhood, my Lady. Hired murderers of no clan, fanatics who believe to kill or be killed is to be sanctified by Turakamu, that death is the only prayer the god will hear. When they accept a commission they vow to kill their victims or die in the attempt.’ He paused, while the gardener made an instinctive sign of protection: the Red God was feared. With a cynical note, Keyoke observed, ‘Yet many in power understand that the Brotherhood will offer their unique prayer only when the tong has been paid a rich fee.’ His voice fell to almost a mutter as he added, ‘And the Hamoi are very accommodating as to whose soul shall offer that prayer to Turakamu.’
‘Why had I not been told of these before?’
‘They are not part of the normal worship of Turakamu, mistress. It is not the sort of thing fathers speak of to daughters who are not heirs.’ Nacoya’s voice implied reprimand.
Though it was now too late for recriminations, Mara said, ‘I begin to see what you meant about needing to discuss many things right away.’ Expecting to be led away, Mara began to turn toward her quarters. But the old woman held her; too shaken to question, Mara obeyed the cue to remain.